The king said to me (the queen also sitting by him), For how long shall your journey be? and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.
Lord, I beg you, let now your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, who delight to fear your name; and please prosper your servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Now I was cup bearer to the king.
But in all this [time] I was not at Yerushalayim; for in the two and thirtieth year of Artachshasta king of Bavel I went to the king: and after certain days asked I leave of the king,
I said to the king, If it please the king, and if your servant have found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Yehudah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may build it.
Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Yehudah, from the twentieth year even to the two and thirtieth year of Artachshasta the king, [that is], twelve years, I and my brothers have not eaten the bread of the governor.
Those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the mitzvah to restore and to build Yerushalayim to the Anointed One, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.